off. At the same time the Lord visited the people with a plague, and with emerods, and the land was marred with mice. Q. What was the consequence ? A. It was carried to Gath; and thence, on account of a similar visitation, to Ekron; but the deadly plague which followed it thither, caused the people to demand its immediate removal. The lords of the Philistines therefore took counsel with the priests and diviners as to the best mode of sending it back to the land of Israel. Q. How did they return it? A. The ark, with a coffer containing five golden emerods, and five golden mice,* according to the number of the lords of the Philistines,† was put into a new cart; and two milch kine, whose calves were shut up at home, were yoked to it, and sent away without any guide. Q. What object had the lords of the Philistines in view? A, To know whether the God of Israel had afflicted them because the diviners had said that if it went by the way of Bethshemesh, the God of Israel had done the evil; but if not, their calamity was a chance. The lords therefore followed the ark; and the kine took the direct road to Bethshemesh. Q. Who received the ark? These were votive offerings. See Appendix N. + The government of the Philistines, in its king and five lords, bears some resemblance to that of Sparta, which was conducted by a king and five Ephori. A. The kine stood still with it in the fields of Joshua ; and the Levites took down the ark and the coffer, and put them on the great stone of Abel; "and they clave the wood of the cart, and offered the kine a burnt offering unto the Lord." Q. Were the people rejoiced at its return? A. Yes the Bethshemites, then reaping their wheat, offered sacrifices that same day to the Lord. But many of them presuming to look into the ark, the Lord smote them with a great slaughter;* wherefore they requested the men of Kirjath-jearim to carry it away. Q. Where was it then deposited ? A. The men of Kirjath-jearim carried it to the house of Abinadab, who sanctified Eleazar his son to keep it. And it abode there twenty-years. A. M. 2892. Q. How long did Elon judge Israel? B. C. 1112. A. M. 2899. B. C. 1105. A. Ten years he was succeeded by Abdon. : Q. How long did Jair judge Israel? A. Two and twenty years. A. M. 2900. Q. How long did Abdon judge Israel? Q. What became of Samson ? A. Delilah, a light woman to whom he had attached himself, succeeded, after many ineffectual attempts, in betraying him for five thousand five hundred pieces of * Some critics, to remove the difficulty in 1 Sam. vi. 19. "And he smote of the people seventy men, fifty thousand men," suppose that out of fifty thousand people, the Lord smote only seventy, + See Chron. Table, No. 3. silver, to the lords of the Philistines. Having put out his eyes, *the Philistines carried him to Gaza, where they put him in fetters, and made him grind† in the prison. Overjoyed at the capture of this formidable adversary, they afterwards held a great feast to Dagon their god, at which the lords, and many thousands of the people attended, and Samson was brought forth to make sport for them. Q. How did their festivity terminate? A. Samson, indignant at the treatment he had received, requested the attendant who held his hand, to let him lean upon the pillars that supported the house, between which he had been placed. Then praying for strength to execute his meditated vengeance, he said, "Let me die with the Philistines:" and bowing himself with all his might,‡ the house fell upon the lords, and This is a common punishment in the east; see 1 Sam. xi. 2. Jer. lii. 11. In Abyssinia, according to Mr. BRUCE, they first pull out the eyes of a criminal, sometimes with a common forceps, and then turn him into the street, to be the prey of the wild beasts which prowl at night through the town. + To set this brave man to discharge a woman's employment, was a great degradation. Samson was a Nazarite by birth, Judg. xiii. 5, and his strength seems to have depended, under providence, principally upon his hair, xvi. 17, 19. Having lost this, his strength went from him; but his hair grew again in the prison, and his strength again returned. The laws relative to the Nazarite occur Numb. t. 1—21. The dedication of hair v. 5. 18. was probably a very early practice, and hence its existence among the Egyptians, Hindoos, and Greciaus. : upon all the people that were therein and thus he slew more at his death than he had done in his lifetime. Q. Did the Philistines deny him sepulchral rites ? A. No: they suffered his family to take away the body, which was buried in the sepulchre of Manoah, his father. He had judged Israel twenty years, "in the days of the Philistines."* Q. What was the religious condition of the Israelites at this period? A. They were still apostates from the worship of The servitude under the Philistines did not terminate until the second year of Saul's reign; and at that time part of the country was garrisoned by their armies, in which many of the Hebrews served, 1 Sam. xiii. 3, 5, 6. 7, 19-22. xiv. 21, 22. This servitude began about the eighteenth year of that under the Ammonites; see Judges x. 7, 8. after which all the direct history, the Ammonitish story excepted, relates to it. Judges xiii.-xvi. 1 Sam. iv. vii. x. 5. xii. xiv. Therefore as Samson was born in the days of the servitude to the Philistines, and in that period terminated his administration of twenty years' continuance, dying a prisoner in their hands; his death will either follow or precede that of Eli, as the epocha of that high priest's administration may be fixed by chronologers. The narrative concerning Samson closes the history contained in the book of Judges. Here it may be observed, that a striking coincidence is discernible between Joshua and Hercules, who both warred with giants, and were assisted against their enemies by tremendous hailstones; between Shamgar, who slew six hundred Philistines with an ox goad, and Lycurgus king of Thrace, who defeated the forces of Bacchus with the same weapon; between Samson and Hercules, in many particulars; between Samson and Nisus king of Megara, the fate of whose kingdom depended upon his hair; and between Jephthah's daughter, who was sacrificed by her father, and Iphigenia, who is said to have suffered a like unhappy fate. See STACKHOUSE'S Hist. of Bib. vol. iii. book v. God but at length Samuel prevailed upon them, by his exhortations, to put away Baal and Ashtaroth, and to turn to the Lord. Q. What followed this reformation ? A. The people were assembled by Samuel in Mizpeh, where they fasted and bewailed their sins. Meanwhile the Philistines, anticipating a revolt, sent an army to disperse them. In this emergency Samuel offered sacrifice and cried to the Lord, and the Lord thundered against the Philistines, who were smitten before Israel. To commemorate the victory, Samuel set up a stone between Mizpeh and Shen, and called it Ebenezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped us. Q. How did Samuel provide for the administration of justice? A. He went annually to Bethel, Gilgal, and Mizpeh, and then returned to Ramah, where he dwelt. There also he judged Israel, and built an altar unto the Lord. Q. Had he any assistance? : A. Yes in his old age he made his sons, Joel and Abiah, judges over Israel. Nevertheless they "walked not in his ways, but turned aside after lucre, and took bribes, and perverted judgment." Q. What was the result? A. The elders requested they might have a king, like the surrounding nations.* Persisting in the choice, * The Ammonitish war made them desirous of a prince who might lead them to battle. This was another reason why they desired a king, 1 Sam, xii. 12. and was quite consonant to their usual forgetfulness of their Great Deliverer. |